


Second Intermission

by MilayaMilenZeal, Night_the_Dragon



Series: Tokyo Mirage Sessions -FF [6]
Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: Actor Neku, Arguments between friends, Gen, Songwriter Joshua, idol culture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:00:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24961201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MilayaMilenZeal/pseuds/MilayaMilenZeal, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Night_the_Dragon/pseuds/Night_the_Dragon
Summary: Friendships have their moments of up and down. While most wish to never fight with their best friends, when faced with life-or-death situations, it's unavoidable.
Series: Tokyo Mirage Sessions -FF [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1611346
Kudos: 1





	Second Intermission

**Author's Note:**

> I'm NOT entirely satisfied with this part, so I will likely get back to it eventually... but for now, enjoy.

Something was up…

Of that, Neku was certain. He just didn’t know what it was exactly.

As he and Joshua were walking back home to the apartment, his roommate was way too quiet. The songwriter had his quiet moments every so often, but on these trips back from the studio, he usually had _something_ to say, at least. The fact that he didn’t only meant that he was more than likely stewing on something. And he wasn’t going to like whatever it was.

When they got back, Joshua still refused to speak as he took off his shoes and walked into the apartment. That was already a _bad_ sign…

He didn’t say anything, though, as he pulled his own shoes off, setting them down next to his friend’s before he (slowly) followed after.

“…ne, Neku?”

‘ _Oh boy, here we go…_ ’ Neku resisted the urge to sigh and instead disguised it as a hum as he looked to the other man. There was nothing on his expression that betrayed how he felt, which was the second bad sign. “Yeah?”

“Can I just ask you to agree to the fact that I’ve been perfectly composed, pardon the pun, in taking in all this new information about our current situation?”

‘ _Ah, crap…_ ’ Realizing where this was going, Neku nodded his head. “Yeah… you’ve been pretty chill ‘bout it,” he said in agreement.

“Alright,” Joshua said with a chuckle. “Glad to know we can at least come to that agreement.”

“Guess so…” the redhead murmured softly, hands in his pockets to hide that he was clenching them tightly in preparation. ‘ _Three… two… one…_ ’

“With that said…” Joshua started – right before his expression contorted into one of unbridled fury as instinctively switched from Japanese to English, “ _what in the HELL were you thinking!? Were you **actually** trying to get yourself killed?!_”

‘ _Shit…_ ’ Neku briefly bit down the inside of his cheek as he brought up his hands in surrender. “Josh, dude, chill. It’s just—”

“ _Do NOT tell me to ‘chill’, Neku!!_ ” Joshua interrupted him. “ _What were you planning to do if we hadn’t been able to get away?! Did you expect us to run and leave you to die?! IS THAT IT?!_ ”

“N-no, of course not! Dude, calm down! I—”

“ _Then what **was** your plan?! In fact, how many times have you been pulling that shit while I wasn’t there!? How often have you been going out there and getting yourself nearly killed?!_”

‘ _Oh for f’s sake…!_ ’ Neku groaned, before he shouted back (in Japanese, as his English wasn’t good enough to shout it): “For the love of—JOSH!! I am not doing this coz I’m damn suicidal, alright?! But someone’s gotta keep everyone safe! What was I supposed to do!? Let everyone _else_ die!?”

“ _THAT’S NO EXCUSE!! If that were the case, you should’ve found a way to protect everyone!!_ ”

“Oh screw off, Joshua! You think I didn’t try any of that?! I’ve been doing everything I can to keep us ALL alive!! It’s not as easy as going left or right to make a decision!!”

“ _Oh isn’t it!? You really expect me to believe that?!_ ”

That finally caused Neku to snap and he fairly barked out: “What the hell, asshole!? What do you expect me to say?! That I _haven’t_ been trying?! The hell happened to ‘ _Trust your partner_ ’?!”

“ _Don’t you dare bring that into this!!_ ”

“And why not?! The way you’re going on right now, you’re only making it more and more obvious that you _still_ don’t trust me to look after my friends!”

It wasn’t until he’d said those words that their meaning actually hit him, and the following silence had him instantly regretting what he’d just said. He tried to speak again, but he wasn’t even sure what he wanted to say. And by the time he was able to form proper words again, Joshua already spun on his heel without a word, disappeared into the bathroom, and slammed the door shut.

‘ _Dammit… me and my stupid big mouth…_ ’ Neku thought as he heard the door’s lock click loudly. ‘ _How’m I gonna fix this mess?_ ’ As he heard the water turn on, he sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair. ‘ _Well… whatever I do… I got some time, at least…_’

As he dropped his hand, though, an idea hit him. And, after debating it for a few moments, he silently nodded his head and pulled out his phone, scrolling through his contacts quickly. Once he found the necessary contact, he hit dial and put it to his ear.

“…hey, man,” he said as the other side picked up. “Could I ask you a favor?”

Joshua sighed for what felt like the one-hundredth time in about as many seconds as he slowly let himself sink a little deeper into the tub, the water now effectively at his lips. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been soaking there anymore, but a quick glance at his fingers revealed that it certainly wasn’t long enough yet. So rather than worry about that, he merely exhaled through his mouth, effectively blowing bubbles under the water, just because.

It wasn’t because he was trying to ignore the words echoing in his head, of course not.

_You **still** don’t trust me_

“Not true…” he said softly, the words being garbled through the water. ‘ _I do trust you… I just wish you would trust me more…_’

At the same time, though, he couldn’t fault Neku entirely. Joshua was well aware that his friend was under a lot of non-disclosure clauses due to his work, but even with those, Neku would (on occasion) talk to him about certain things that he couldn’t talk to anyone else about, under the absolute condition that Joshua did not breathe a word of it to anyone else. Which he never did, of course.

He just couldn’t understand why Neku wouldn’t want to share something this big with him, especially considering the severity of the situation he’d witnessed today. While it should’ve been obvious already that the Idolaspheres were far from pleasant, and even potentially dangerous, somehow it just didn’t hit him until the moment Neku had been struck down and lay unconscious, likely from the extreme pain he’d been in.

That had been the moment that Joshua realized that they could actually die in there… and no one would know.

If normal people couldn’t see the Idolaspheres, that meant that, if any of them succumbed to their injuries in there, then no one would know they had. No one would know they’d died in there and they’d have gone on with their lives as normal.

How long would it have been until someone realized they would not come back?

How long before someone would… or _could_ come looking for them?

…how long would it have taken _him_ if Neku were to perish in one of the spheres…?

A block of ice fell in his gut as the thought hit him. The thought of his best friend dying in some dark, cold place, without him knowing about it, was absolutely terrifying. Worse still, was the thought of his friend dying _alone_.

Shaking the thought away before it could fester, Joshua looked down at his hand again. And, finally, the fingers were pruning up, signaling it was about time for him to get the hell out. Not that he really wanted to, but he couldn’t spend the whole night in the tub. That would be extremely bad for his complexion, after all.

After getting dressed, Joshua considered what to do next. He was pretty sure that Neku was waiting for him so he could apologize, but he wasn’t really in the mood to talk.

‘ _I’ll just go to the bedroom and see if I can get some work done…_ ’ he figured.

The moment he cracked open the door, though, he realized that something was… off.

He had no idea what it was until he breathed in again and the smell reached him. And when it did, he couldn’t help but smile as he quietly opened the door and walked over to the kitchenette, where Neku was just pulling out something from the oven (wearing mitts this time, unlike his first attempt).

Joshua waited patiently until Neku had put the tin on the counter, not wanting him to accidentally drop it onto the floor and waste what he’d been doing, before he spoke up: “And just what are you doing, hm?”

Though he did jump briefly at the question, Neku didn’t seem as surprised to see him when he looked back. “…what does it look like?” he asked, rather than answer the question.

“Hmm… well, it looks like you’ve been cooking, dear~”

The statement caused Neku to snort derisively. “Well, I was _baking_ , idiot…”

Which, in turn, had Joshua laughing. “Oh really? I must say… I’m impressed the kitchen is still in one piece, then…”

“Oh sod off, Josh!” Neku hissed, but Joshua could spot the light redness along his friend’s cheeks. “If you don’t appreciate my effort at apologizing I’ll just toss the whole thing…”

“No need,” Joshua said quickly, stopping his friend from dropping the tin in the garbage. “Apology accepted, dear.”

“ _Stop_ calling me that!!”

Joshua merely smirked cheekily as he looked down at the contents of the tin. He didn’t even need to get a knife out to cut it to figure out exactly what kind of pie it was. The smell alone was enough of a hint. Still… even though the actor had clearly used the smallest tin they had, it was still way too much for just him.

“Care for a slice, dear?” he asked casually.

“Dude…” Neku snorted with a frown. “You know I can’t—”

“Oh, please… one slice won’t hurt anyone~” Joshua giggled. “And besides… no one needs to know~”

Naturally, this resulted in Neku glaring at him, before he snorted. “Yeah, sure… and I bet you wouldn’t dare hold that over my head to keep me from doing anything stupid, huh?”

“Why I would _never!_ ”

“Uh-huh… sure.”

“…So, care for a slice, dear?”

“…ugh. _Fiiiine_ …”

Joshua merely giggled at the simple response.


End file.
